THE RUSSIAN WAY

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 272, 12 August 1932, Page 8

THE RUSSIAN WAY

Soviet Oil Trade Bungles CURRENCY VAGARIES British Shipmaster’s View Interesting sidelights on Russian Soviet business methods, particularly in the Black Sea oil trade, are given by the master of a British tanker in a recent letter to a friend in W cllington. The tanker was for twelve ' months running from California to Wellington with cargoes of fuel oil. We are running under charter to the Bolsheviks and get all our instructions from Moscow, he writes; but somebody there made an awful mistake when chartering this ship. After the charter party was arranged for a cargo of “any dirty mineral oil,” they discovered they did not want a dirty ship at all, but a clean ship to load a cargo of refined petroleum for Shanghai! They then approached the owners to know their terms for" getting out of it, and when they found that our people wanted the estimated, amount of freight they would have earned —over £lO,OO0 —they decided they would try and clean the ship for this clean cargo. Now, that was some job, seeing that the ship had just come off a charter of 12 months carrying dirty oil, and although we had cleaned some of the tanks on the way from Wellington to Java and loaded a cargo of molasses for Hong-Kong, and another cargo from Manila, they were still nut clean enough for this special clean oil cargo. Anyhow, the owners promised we would do all we could on the way from Rotterdam to Batoum, and after that all further cleaning would be on charterers’ account. We arrived at Batoum on March 23, and they started in with 50 men to finish the tanks, as we had only been able to take off the thick of It, and after working at her for 15 days they still found she was not clean enough for this special stuff. • Kerosene for Farm Tractors. Meanwhile the wires were hot with Moscow badgering the people in Batoum as to why we had not sailed for Shanghai, and Batoum sending back despairing telegrams about the state of the tanks. Then someone bad the brainwave to suggest that we take three or four cargoes of kerosene to Odessa for the tractors on the farms, which would not matter if discoloured a bit, so they fixed up another addendum to the charter party for four intermediate trips with this stuff. This was all to the owners’ good, as it kept the ship running on a freightpaying basis and there was still the Shanghai freight in the offing. We ran two cargoes of kerosene to Odessa and finally went back to Batoum, where we remained at anchor for 15 days waiting for the wind of authority to give us direction. Telegrams were chasing each other to and fro between Moscow and London, and in the end they gave up all idea of cleaning the ship sufficiently to carry their extra special stuff and fixed up an entirely new charter party for three trips, first to Port Said, then to Italy, and last to U.K. or Continent with dirty oil! Moscow’s Costly Mistake. We reckoned the original mistake made in Moscow cost them upwards of £7OOO, what with the cost of labour, the clean kerosene they gave us to pump through the ship, and demurrage, the last alone amounting to £1456 on the first trip. And then to put dirty oil in her and make her just as she was before they started! We made the Port Said trip and returned to Batoum, and even then they could not keep to the charter party, but must needs load us for three ports, Antwerp, Rotterdam, and Hamburg, instead of the run to Italy. We shall probably make one more trip to the Black Sea, and then I sincerely trust that will be the last time I shall see the land of the Bolshies for the rest of my life. Condition of the People.

Although the people I have had to deal with have been decent enough and easy to get on with, the state of the country is indescribable. The people are hungry and very poorly clothed and afraid to whisper a word against the existing state of things for fear of being overheard by any member of a secret society. In that case they would be denounced to the authorities and either be shot or banished for life to the mines. Foreigners, of whom of course 90 per cent are sailors like ourselves, are bound down with all sorts of restrictions and cannot even use the currency of the country, but have dished out to them what are called Torgsln Bonds, which they can spend only in certain shops. On the other hand, the natives cannot go into these shops as they have only the rouble currency, Roubles and Sterling. They charge us the rate of exchange of whatever country you happen to belong to—for ourselves about seven roubles to the pound sterling. But there are speculators on the streets who will sell yon, sub rosa of course, anything from 80 to 120 roubles for every pound note you like to produce. For instance, if I telephone for a droskhy to the ship to take me to the office, they pay the driver 20 roubles and enter it up on the ship’s disbursement account at seven to the pound, amounting to practically £3, whereas 20 roubles at the 100 to the pound which you can get on the street Is only four shillings I had a laundry bill of 35 roubles to settle, and I had some roubles In my pocket which I had changed for me the night before, so I offered the man these and he would not take them; 35 roubles at seven to the pound came to £5, whereas I could have paid him with the currency of the country, and it would have cost me only about 6/-. I told him this was the strangest country I had ever been In, where they would not take their own currency I can assure you It felt good when we'got t P ? , Said after two ffiontbs of Soviet Culture—with a capital C—to be able to go into any shop you liked provided you had money In your pocket, and also to see decently-dressed people walking about and motor-cars and cafes and kinemas again.